Hoagie sale aids children in need

As freely as they received, they freely give. Families that have benefited from the Helping Hands Super Bowl Hoagie Sale in the past are chipping in for this year’s fundraiser.

“To sit and think that these people, year after year, come back, it really says something about the fundraiser and about what we’re trying to teach the kids,” said Kim Hinrichs, an organizer of the hoagie sale and Future Acts advisor at Orchard Valley. The middle schools’ Future Acts club combined with the Changing Our World project at the high school to put on the annual Super Bowl Hoagie Sale, which raises money for families facing costly and serious medical procedures.

She said that as early as September, former recipients and their families have contacted her to see how they can help.

“You feel good to see that this had such a positive effect on their family and they took such emotional support from it,” Hinrichs said.

Michaela Healy is one of those recipients. A 15-year-old sophomore at the high school, Healy has undergone hundreds of surgeries for hydrocephalus, where water builds up on her brain. Her case is so complex that she has to fly out to California regularly to get surgeries to relieve the pressure. With the overwhelming costs of the procedures and travel necessary to keep her alive, she’s been a recipient of the hoagie sale funds for the past few years.

Her family makes it a point to return each year to lend their help to the sale however they can.

“[Michaela] loves to be able to help. She’s a very giving kid as far as that goes. She likes to know someone else is getting the help they need,” Michaela’s mother, Lisa Healy, said. “She’s had it first hand, and it’s good for her. I like the fact that she wants to get involved with the community that has been so generous to us and help out with next generation.”

Michaela’s 7-year-old sister will also get in the act, helping to hand out hoagies that Sunday. Healy said it’s inspiring for them to see the kids hard at work making the hoagies, always with a positive and excited energy.

“It’s nice to see there are good people,” Healy said. “When you’re in an unfortunate or a tragic situation, you get to see the good in people and get to see how many good people are out there.”

Like the Buonadonnas. Their daughter, Taylor, was a recipient of the fundraiser for two years, before passing away from a rare form of bone cancer in November of 2010.

Now, her father West and two of his daughters will be up before dawn on Super Bowl Sunday to volunteer for the event. Buonadonna will man the paper-cutting station, a job he considers both a tradition and an honor.

“That’s my spot. I’m the paper guy. Ron [Lucarini] tells me how big to make it, how many pieces. It’s great there’s a lot of kids in the room. It’s really nice that so many of these kids get there before the crack of dawn and are so energized to do so much,” Buonadonna said.

From the beginning to the end of his daughter’s battle with cancer, he said the community support has been extraordinary. He said that being on the volunteering end after going through that experience makes it even more important to him and his family.

“What those families are experiencing is overwhelming. The bills that come with it, the finances, the emotions. You can’t comprehend what goes on around you,” Buonadonna said.

The outpouring of support from the school, particularly the senior class, has been crucial to helping the Buonadonna’s deal with their loss.

“These kids, they’re icons to our family. Their names are imprinted in our hearts,” he said. “It’s a reality of when you lose a child, you’re reminded everyday. But living in such a great community and seeing her classmates and they way they carry themselves, it gets you through.”

Hinrichs said hundreds of students have come out en masse to volunteer for the event, but in order to have hoagies for them to make, they have to see a big increase in their preorders.

“Right now, we don’t have enough hoagies sold to support the amount of kids that want to volunteer. We’ve never had to turn kids away, and that’s scary right now. We need to sell some hoagies so we can make this as successful as last year,” said Hinrichs. She said the event teaches students things that you just can’t write into a lesson plan.

“This isn’t something you can teach in a classroom. There are people out there facing horrific and tragic circumstances. We’re trying to teach the kids about how it feels to actually give back, to teach them to be a part of something that’s bigger than them,” she said.

Buonadonna said volunteering for the sale really shows him the extent of the massive amount of work that goes into getting thousands of hoagies ready for the big day.

“Having a kid that was a recipient, and going back and being on the other side helping others, makes you realize how much goes into making the event happen,” Buonadonna said. It’s something he’d like to witness as long as he possibly can.

“For us to go back to do hoagie sale, it’s a given. We’ll be there as long as they’ll have us,” Buonadonna said. “As many years as they do it, we’ll be there.”